Norris: Guilty of poor judgement.

David Norris has serious questions to answer. The fact is, if a letter of the type that is now in the public domain had been written by any other candidate, especially a conservative candidate, liberals like me would be all over it, and Senator Norris has to be held to the same standard. And, it is relevant: In writing such a letter, the senator has shown loyalty to someone he cares deeply about, but also shocking poor judgement, and judgement matters. There are many people who would have been well disposed towards the senator who will now have doubts about voting for him.

But they should still have the choice to make that decision. It should still be up to the Irish people to decide who shall be their president, not the Sunday Indo and certainly not a foreign power. I am, on balance, a defender of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, but I’m somewhat sceptical as to why they have chosen now to interfere in an Irish presidential election. The goodness of their hearts? Do Mossad scour their files for every other country’s election, out of a fear that the electorates of those countries may not have the full facts? To be honest, I don’t believe in a conspiracy theory, after all, who would this help? Michael D, who is hardly a friend of Israel? Or maybe Gay Mitchell? But then, why would Israel want to help Fine Gael, unless, of course, somewhere in the government was an individual with a staunch record of defending that country. But that’s just ridiculous. Such people don’t exist in Irish politics, surely?